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AMD Catalyst 12.6 For Linux Disappoints

06-29-2012, 08:30 AM

Phoronix: AMD Catalyst 12.6 For Linux Disappoints

Following the changing of the Catalyst release schedule and dropping old hardware support, Catalyst 12.6 for Linux has been officially released. However, it's already disappointing some Linux binary driver users...

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So just to be clear, a few years of doggy binary blobs that only just started to work correctly and then support gets dropped in fav of a opensource driver that should have been worked on in the first place _before_ release, much like Intel which seem to be just fine at doing just this.

This is so fucking ridiculous, you are essentially criminals who are not selling products fit for consumers.
Someone has to say it direct, sorry!

I simply don't go out and buy a car and then get told;
"sorry, write the EMC firmware yourself and oh be thankful we are so nice these days we _may_ provide docs 6 months later on the EMC for your DIY car."

Get it throw your heads, Your billion dollar company should *NOT* be selling DIY products, this is not the 1980's any more when computers were kits.
I fully expect to buy a product and have working drivers, cabals, plugs or whatever else is expected for your products to preform their `advertised' and thus required duties, END OF!

I don't know what everyones problem is with Nvidia, they sell a product with associated policies (which I can understand people could disagree with). However, their products work just perfectly as `advertised'. The lack of Optimus support is really half a issue with Linux and lack of API's in both Xorg and the kernel which granted have recently got better. However that is unfair to blame Nvidia for lack of kernel knobs.

How about this, AMD FUCK YOU! That also goes to people sticking up for a company that has ample `fiscal' resource, who quite frankly is screwing you too.
To quote Wilfred Owen; "To children ardent for some desperate glory, The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est Pro patria mori."
That is to say, don't get patriotic about a company. A company is not a human. Cut the fan boy crap guys.

Oh and by the way, I could not give a shit about excuses of legal problems about HDMI code or whatever, if you can't make hardware/software that is workable to the person paying you money then don't release, license or whatever that design because no one cares about a god given designed that can't be used.

Its 2012, Sort it out!

Apologies for the colorful language to other perhaps younger sorts. </rant>

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Linux based systems are not DIY systems ... Ubuntu and Fedora have pushed the ease of driver and software installations and work just great at what they advertise for average users ...

huh? nobody forces you to buy their products. Or use a Linux based system.

A manufacturer should not advertise support for linux if it doesn't support it properly. AMD may not go out and say "linux certified", but it does say "hey look at us, we support the linux open source community" indirectly. But you are right, NVidia and Intel are the only cards i can recommend Linux systems for, and Ubuntu and Fedora don't discourage the use of AMD drivers (albeit Fedora discourages all non open source drivers) and therefore the fault lies on the community / distributions for not reflecting the state of driver support for such a well known driver .. not like they have to go far to realize there are issues with the drivers

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A manufacturer should not advertise support for linux if it doesn't support it properly.

I've a radeon9800XT (yes, one of those old cards) and a Radeon HD5870 (new) both work fantastic under Linux based systems. I've almost zero problems (last driver didn't work with Ubuntu 12.04 Kernel, not AMDs fault but someone decided to kick a variable out of the Kernel). Video playback works fine, GnomeShell works fine, games are working fine.

AMD may not go out and say "linux certified", but it does say "hey look at us, we support the linux open source community" indirectly.

since they release tons of documentations and (to my knowledge) support one of those OpenSource driver they've every right to do so.

But you are right, NVidia and Intel are the only cards i can recommend Linux systems for

*cough* SandyBridge disaster*cough* also last time I checked on those Intel drivers (not graphic related) they managed to kill their network ports with a faulty driver that was developed by them. So much for 'quality'.

, and Ubuntu and Fedora don't discourage the use of AMD drivers (albeit Fedora discourages all non open source drivers) and therefore the fault lies on the community / distributions for not reflecting the state of driver support for such a well known driver .. not like they have to go far to realize there are issues with the drivers

seriously, I don't have any issues with the last driver (didn't try the new one yet).

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I fail to see this `irony' since Linux is a professional opensource operating system today. Thus, is not DIY per se, in the sense that I don't need to build the wiring down the street leading up to my house to power my Linux machine.

There are plenty of professional customers that contribute to Linux in and outside in many other ways, such as scientific institutes, universities etc.. that don't want to spend 6 months of wasted time every time they buy a new graphics card.

Hardware vendors are obligated in some sense to provide `as advertised' support towards an `advertised supported' OS and associated documentation for security and stability reasons since most kernel oops are driver issues.

I'm not trolling and the above statement is obviously not directed at the engineering team. Pick holes in it as much as you like, to be honest I don't and I think many people who actually use their machines for serious work care about the political side.

BTW, ATi have had crap drivers under WinNT kernels for years too, what their excuse there too? (rhetorical, I don't actually care - I just want a product that works for ~1.5 year before it goes in the bin and I get the next shinny one, particularly GPU's)